Block 0 Bugs Fixed
After some intense work and lots of momentum (and a buttload of text formatting), I fixed what I believe is the last of the Block 0 text bugs. There were three key items that display text on the outside screen when used. The programmers coded this stuff separate from all the other stuff in the game, so lots of hacking and untangling was needed. But, it looks like we finally finished that horrible nightmare hack.
I tested it all fairly quickly, but everything seems to work okay with these new hacks in place, so…. let’s cross that sucker off the to-do list!
Here are some pics (trying to keep spoilers out) of stuff in action.
this is on the official m3 t-shirt btw 
I conclude that that hack sucked
During this, I noticed a new bug has crept in though. Sometimes (but not always, argh), main script text, when it is scrolled up, leaves a copy of itself behind on the lower line. I’m not sure what the cause is, but I never saw that until today, so it must’ve been something I did in the last few days. I’ll look into it tomorrow/today.
For those wondering what that “text morphing” thing on the to-do list is, it’s from a few months back, during the horrible sprite text font routine we had to do that took like a month or so. Anyways, the problem is that the sprite text routine used by menus will seem to “jump” or “morph” very quickly when text needs to change and the # of sprites used by the new text is different from the previous #. Here are some examples of it in action. It happens so fast that it took forever to get these pics, heh.
The programmers were very weird and basically they set up all the sprites and then clear them out again almost immediately after. It does this over and over constantly, only you normally don’t notice because it happens so fast. That and the original game didn’t need to do sprite text welding. But because it’s always refreshing from scratch, this problem arises. I’ve tried a few ways to fix it in the past, but I have a few more ideas to try. It’ll take some time, but the goal is to make sure that menu text is always rock-solid.
Anyway, huge thing crossed off the list, we’re very close to the final testing phase now π―
Awesome to hear =D
i love you
Already!? GREAT! π
Mazal Tov!! Very awesome to hear!!! π π Can’t wait to play this on my Wii π Everyone involved with this huge undertaking has done an amazing job!!
Fuck yeah, keep up the good work man π
3rd by 3 minutes. YAY! So close.
dang, nvm
Great job man, I can’t wait to play!
Excellent news, Mato ! Many achivements today, it was nice to refresh the site from time to time and follow your progress every few hours ! The end is near, you’ll finally be able to relax a little, which is well deserved !
Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication !
Holy crap, so many comments, so little time.
Seems to me after you poke at one thing, another thing goes loose…Which sucks definitely…Best wishes to you!
I never thought this day would come. :O
Holy crap dude…
I’m officially in awe.
Fantastic! You guys rock so hard.
Cheers!
right on guys, good stuff
Can’t wait till the testing begins.
You guys are amazing!!
awesome cant wait
BOOOSH
holy guacamole you work fast.
Mato you are tougher, rougher, and badder than any translator I know
impossibly epic!
From what you’ve mentioned of the original programmers, well, frankly, it sounds like they’re all completely insane.
I love you guys so much.
I’m looking forward to this deeply.
Wow! I am truly amazed that you got this particular hack done in the time you did! I applaud you!
I’ve been following this project since it was on mother3.org. I can’t believe the end is almost here!
Rather amazing. Of course, you said you had no time. It took about a week and a half really. But again, the fact that we even have just one thing left is something to be happy about. I mean this thing looked previously like it would never be done. Ever.
Awesome, I’ve been waiting a long time for this translation!
So close!
SMAAAAAASH!! Take THAT Block 0 Bug!
YOU ARE ON A ROLL!!!!
My vote goes to badder. Badder because Mato (&Friends?) is way badder of a hacker than those guys at Nintendo. And cause this game is going to be badder for my grades when you release it.
Wow, I’m so excited! I’ve had the worst week, but seeing the title “Block 0 Bugs Fixed” makes it all better :). Thanks for doing all this hard work, you guys are great!
Been keeping an eye on this off and on… I thought that block 0 bug would have kept you busy for a lot longer. You guys are godly for having gotten this far, considering what you had to work with. Excellent work!
Woooooh~!
There are many good reasons to put news feeds in browser reader, tracking them every day. And even so, to keep reading your team’s nice job still counts the No.One. I can figure out how hard you guys have been dealing with all those works, and definitely, you made yourselves to be well respected and proud of.
There’s an proverb in Chinese, “θ‘ηΎιθ εδΉε”, which means even 90% of one journey still does not count as a success, and when approaching the final it will become much more difficult. May the luck be always on your side. π
oh my god. looking at that to do list, it’s so amazing. the patch…it’s within our grasps. it’s just oh-so-barely within our reach. and you know it won’t be long and we’ll have it. and it’ll be thanks to you guys and your hard work and effort that was put into this. the whole mother 3 translation team. damn. i’m confident in saying this is one fan translation that will send waves throughout the net. and i can’t wait to join the thousands of others getting it.
just hope the server can handle it π
Seriously, you are doing great work. I <3 you. Question though, how much experience do you have doing these translation work anyway? I’m thinking of getting into that line of work but I’m not sure of myself.
Wonderful work! I’ve been following this project from the beginning (rather, multiple projects at one time) and I’m astonished with the progress that has been made so far. Thanks for all hard work guys. It’s almost here!
Question for those with experience: sblur made me a version of the game’s script with all the control codes and misc. data stripped away, so that we can throw it through a grammer and spel checker. I work with MS Word daily and I know how pitiful it is, so I’d rather not use it.
Does anyone have any suggestions for good programs to use for this? Keep in mind it’s a big file, so I can’t paste it into web forms or anything.
Dude, you are a machine! Good stuff!
Will be singing you praise again in a month or three once testing is done π
Jeffman as well – high-5 for the work done there
Holy shiiiit, it’s so close.
Thank you all for the extreme efforts you’ve put into this project. Soon we’ll all be able to indulge in the fruits of your labor.
you have defeated block 0
the enemy leaves behind a present
inside the present is WIN
For spelling you can hit it with the ASpell command line checker. http://aspell.net/
I’m not sure of anything similar for grammer
YESSS!!! Now we don’t have to hear about block 0 EVER AGAIN!!! Great news! I almost don’t believe how close you are.
Keep up the great work! π
THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU! π Good luck dude you can do it!!!!
Oh WUT?!
Block 0 is done already?! I wasn’t expecting you guys to wrap that up for another week! You guys ‘effin rock!
Hey, when this is all done I wanna interview you guys for my website. I’ve been following your work on this for a while and to be honest, I’m a huge fan.
You guys are awesome and I hope you know how much the community of fellow MOTHER fans totally appreciate all of your hard work.
@Mato
ASpell is probably your best bet, like Daemoncollector said. It’s a command line, (or shortcut, if you’r using windows. =3 Drag-n-drop onto shortcut!) and it’s very efficient, as far as I can tell. I don’t have too much experience with it, personally, but the little bit I do have has been good.
I’ll also suggest using Aspell for spell checking, but grammar checking is (and likely always will be) a tougher thing to tackle. Most grammar checkers are of the “paste text in, then check” variety, so they’re impractical for 10kb of text; however, Queequeg http://queequeg.sourceforge.net/index-e.html and LanguageTool http://www.languagetool.org/ have command line utilities available, allowing you to feed in your gigantic text file. Rather bugs me with the quality of most grammar checkers around, majority of them have no facility to take on the mass of text you have.
O_O
Man this thing just looks sharper and sharper with every new update. My FROTHING DEMAND for this patch INCREASES.
Awesome work Mato!
Been following this blog since you started it. Now what am I going to do with myself aside from playing a LOT of Mother 3 π
P.S. If you have enough time/patience and depending on when you finish the remaining hacking, are you going to give one more crack at getting the battle text (the “the” bug) 100% working?
It doesn’t personally bother me, but I know you’re a guy who likes to have things as perfect as possible π
P.S. Keep up the excellent job man! You know we all appreciate it so much! π
P.P.S. I’m worried about catching rabies from Dr. Meat.
Great Job! So great to hear you killed the block 0 bugs you’re the greatest mato!
Block 0 bug called for help!
Text bug joined the battle!
Mato bashed at Block 0 bug!
478 damage!
Block 0 bug fainted!
Sorry, I had to do it >.<
Anyway, YAY BLOCK 0 BUG NO MORE!!!
Wow, that was way faster than I expected. I’m amazed at the progress, considering updates were just becoming rare. Also, really easy secret link compared to last time.
“eisnerguy1” – haha, I thought I’m the only israelian here π
It’s really awsome, keep doing your best, that’s gonna be the best fan translated game ever π
Great work Mato. You’ve probably heard of it before, but a good friend of mine suggested getting open office as a great MS word alternative. http://www.openoffice.org/
awesome. now all that’s left is the testing. yay!
well done!
THIS IS TOO AWESOME MY MIND IS BREAKING
Open Office is really too much of a steaming turd, performance-wise, to even consider for the scope of file Mato would be working with.
Mato, here is a good statistical comparison of various grammar checkers (last update was Feb. ’08):
http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/gramchek.htm
It looks like the best option on PC is Wordperfect. If you have access to a Mac apparently Grammarian Pro X is the bee’s knees. Unfortunately it looks like Aspell wasn’t included. I’d like to know how it stacks up myself…
Thanks for the miracles you work on a daily basis. Keep going strong!
My awesome-o-meter just suffered a meltdown.
What’s wrong with Word’s grammar checker Mato? :O
Oh right, yeah. It sucks, how could I forget.
PS: Please make a t-shirt with those exact words in that exact pixel font. It would be a tour de force!
mato, your translation is such skill. how long did it taking you to learn asian?
Mato…
You are a golden god
Yeah, Word is ridiculous, thinking you need colons after every four words. OpenOffice is a little better (Plus it’s what I personally use daily) but run anything over around 10 pages, and you get a very unhappy computer. I honestly don’t know. Plus it may not be smart to use any of the commercial software, or else you get a dialog popping up every five minutes saying you spelt a name wrong. I’m afraid it may be best to send it to someone with extensive grammar experience and wait.
Whoa, it means there are only two things left in to-do list!!
OMFG Mato! You’re awesome!
I can’t believe how much stuff is crossed off that list! This is awesome, soon we can ACTUALLY PLAY MOTHER EFFING THREE.
Wasn’t Block 0 only 25% done yesterday? π
That proves Mato’s awesome powers of H4xxorz.
(Plus I forgot in my ramble:
Yay! Major stuff gone. that really didn’t take that long)
YESZ
Man, you guys are beasts!
man you guys are dedicated
boner
Wow Mato, you’re working at the speed of light here! I can’t believe you finished this so fast! At this rate we might have the patch by Thanksgiving!
Congratulations, Mato!
I know you guys get this a lot, and I know it may get old after a while, but I truly mean it from the bottom of my heart and sould: Bear my children. Please.
F@%K yeah! That’s quite a hurdle you’ve just crossed.
Not too many things left, good luck Mato!
Mato, don’t you find it a bit…creepy when people ask you to bear their children? It’s getting kind of annoying.
Zoom! Patch almost done! Ding! Coming closer! Boing!
Wow. Just wow. Block 0 was sounding terrible, and you tamed it in a week and a half!? (if that)
I’ve been watching this blog for ages, this if my first comment, first up I want to thank you, sincerely, for providing us with this sevice (both the translation and hacking, AND the great blog) and say well done, so far, it’s been great seeing the huge list of things to do drop down to a mere one (and one secret one?) plus polish.
ONE THING! WOO!
@Jabberocky: Is it my fault that Mato is so undeniably god-like that I would like him to be the father of my children, despite me being a man myself? Is that SO WRONG?!?
Ahem…
“…This should take several weeks to hack, and is the hardest thing left to hack”
Hard? Yes
Several weeks? Stop underestimating yourself
Mato, where do you live? I need to send you a pizza trophy.
oh, good job guys! i can’t believe this… that was much faster than i thought it would be. i feel…h.a.p.p.y…
Wow, after all this time and it’s almost here.
It seems like this is the brawl update site, only with mother 2.
Congratulations you hax0rz team.
HOLY SHIT! THAT WAS FAST!!1!!11!
Hey, hey, translator!
Keep hacking make a future brighter!
Go ahead, translator!
oooooh yeaahhhh
[guess which video I just watched]
[no, wait, don’t]
WHAT DA EEFF!!!! That was far quicker than anticipated. I had thought the Block 0 thing would take another month or so. Mato just practically declared Block 0 as his B****h. Way to go!!
Wow! You’re amazing!
Also, thanks for making the secret link easier to find than the one in the last update ^-^
I cant wait!
PK love? Nah more like PK mato!
I just tried out this one program called AccuSpell. Its a embedded spell checker that can check any text for problems.
This is good because it could load up a file in a normal wordpad or another program you use to load the translation into and be able to check it without needing to do anything to it.
It comes with a free trial and see how that goes.
[how it works]
file:///C:/Program%20Files/AccuSpell/AccuSpell_QSG/AS_Spell.htm
[Download link]
http://www.isota.com/productcart/pc/evaluations/dl.asp?dlsite=i&product=4&downloadable=AccuSpell.exe
[p.s.]
it found you made a typing mistake
“I conclude that that hack sucked”
The epicness of this patch will not be overcome for quite a while.
Duuuude, already? that was like… not even 2 days π Don’t worry about the small little bugs, you’ll squash them some time along the way. Sorry that I don’t have a suggestion for ya’ about the spell checker.
Holy crap! Already?! GEEZ! You deserve a Title!
mind = blown
yay mato π
I didn’t even relize that there was a Fixing Block 0 Bugs, Part 3 until I already read this update π
snap snap snap
I love you guys so much :D.
You, sir, are the greatest human being to ever live.
Holy crap, holycrapholycrapholycrap.
I’ve only been a Mother fan for a little while–I just beat Earthbound for the first time a couple weeks ago–but I am already very impressed with the fandom.
You guys are AMAZING. Keep up the awesome work, I’m looking forward to the complete patch!! <333
way to go! can’t wait for the final product!
Yay for Mato, King of Hacks!
You know, the Mother series is one of the few video games that only got better as I got older, so I’m so exited, thanks guys.
“The programmers were very weird and basically they set up all the sprites and then clear them out again almost immediately after.”
Can’t you just take that clearing method out? That just seems like a very retarded way to do things. π‘
I gave a little fangirl squee when I saw this.
I NEVER DO FANGIRL SQUEES. O_O
So Block 0 is over, congratularions! But, it seems it is not over yet. Well, keep it up!
By the way, thanks for the not-so-hard to find link, since I nver found the last two.
I’m so excited!
The final version should be out very soon?,Nice one.
This game is gonna kick ass, Hopefully this will convince Nintendo that loads of people still love the mother series and they will make a 4th one.
Watch Nintendo be a bunch of (mean human beings) and announce a week before this comes out that they’re officially releasing M3. Essentially dropping the whole project.
Mwuahhahaa… You killed the Block 0 bug. Now did you hide its body? π
When the BEST grammar checker only finds half the errors, I wouldn’t bother with that. I WOULD bother with spell-checking, though.
Like others said, one of the command line tools would be good. I might also check for repeated words (“the the” type errors are hard to find). You can do that with a pretty simple Perl script.
http://www.blog.highub.com/regular-expression/perl-regular-expression/find-repeated-words/
Though you’d have to modify that a little to read in a text file and print all occurrences.
I always wonder why fiction involving twins always makes [i]who is older[/i] a significant character distinction. I mean, if you want to differentiate between characters’ ages, why make them twins in the first place?
HOLY SHNIKES ON MY NIKES! Block 0 has been thwarted. HUUZAH HUUZAH! now to tackle the rest of the to-do list. Mato, GJ and GL on the rest.
I guess it had to go along somewhat with the storyline.
Man, what’s the “hidden” video this time? Youtube says it’s a private video. Perhaps that’s the joke.
YES! Block Zer0 is dead!!!
My mind just Diesploded. And that’s not even a word.
# Mato said 10 hours ago:
Question for those with experience: sblur made me a version of the gameβs script with all the control codes and misc. data stripped away, so that we can throw it through a grammer and spel checker. I work with MS Word daily and I know how pitiful it is, so Iβd rather not use it.
Does anyone have any suggestions for good programs to use for this? Keep in mind itβs a big file, so I canβt paste it into web forms or anything.
Mato, I do this kinda thing over breakfast… I’d like to recommend myself but of course that includes a bias and etc, etc, so I will search my myriads of sources to find you a program that will find as much of the grammatical errors (that are hopefully few in number, but ya never know) as possible.
~Wish me luck!
I had to comment today because my anticipation is peaking. I’m so grateful to you hackers and translators! This “Mother 3 translation” is gonna go down in history as one of the biggest achievements for fans of an out-of-reach game. It’s huge! THANKS AGAIN!!!!
*Hands Mato a Tomato* Go nom it. *Hands Mato a present*
The proper way to measure code quality:
http://ptrace.fefe.de/wtfm.jpg
by this metric Mother 3 was programmed by the monkeys of first-year CS students
Can you notice the sprite morphing problem if you don’t know about it? Sounds like it happens very fast and it’s hard to see. Maybe I’m just confused.
Block 0 is finally down! Nice link btw
Mur said: [p.s.]
it found you made a typing mistake
βI conclude that that hack suckedβ
I conclude that that is not true.
wow. holy cow. Block 0 is gone? we antagonized that piece of code for months and you hack it in a few days? kudos. wow. I’m staggered, seriously…
You rock Tomato. You are so cool that you could cock block Matt Damon. kutgw! (that means keep up the good work)
Power just went out in my house right when I came to the website, so I couldn’t read about your accomplishment. What sucks about the red official M3 shirt is that it’s limited edition and they’re sold out in my size. I would have totally bought one.
Wait a second, you’re translating Mother 3?!?!?!?
And the last horse crosses the finish line π
jk Yes he is.
helluva man doing a helluva job!
Incredible work Mato! I was expecting block 0 to take a lot longer. That was an awesome vid in the secret link too.
Yeah I was also expecting Block 0 to take a longer time. *Hands Mato another present*
Wow, you ripped that block 0 to shreds. Nice π
Hahaha, I can’t get enough of that “I Heart NY” guy.
Congrats on finishing that block 0 madness. You had been talking about it for so long that I was afraid it was going to take forever to fix, but you did it in about a day! You rock, man. Can’t wait for this project to be OVER! (I’m sure you feel the same way.)
Whoo, go Tom Ato! Too bad that awesome shirt was sold out. D: I wanted one.
Mato, Jeffman, you are gods among men my friends! Thank you for all of your hard work in finally taking down that nasty bit of code. Now, once testing is finished, I’ll be able to enjoy a game I’ve been waiting far too long to know the plot of. (I’ve actually managed to keep myself from reading anything about the plot, and I’ve only played the first 15 minutes.)
*squeals like a school girl*
yayayayay
YUS! IT’S ALMOST DONE!
*Specific praises*
So maybe Mato didn’t lose all his reality marbles, after all π
That’s good. Because I wouldn’t be surprised if he has to kill some of these bugs 12 more times for them to stay dead…
*name-brand praises*
Yay!!!
How long will testing last? From what I remember, it’s a month. But is there any chance it will take less time?
wow 25% to 100% in a day?!?!?!?!?
You own the internet now, INCREDIBLE WORK, i CANT wait for that final release!!! god bless you all who work for this game in english>!
3 Left. It’s like battling a fobby at level 99 you guys just need a very little amount of time (not turns like my refrence)!
By the way, the hidden link is at the very end.
bacon is almost as delicious as reading these Updates.
You guys are awesome!
Also bacon is not NEARLY as delicious as these updates.
spoiler: Snape kills Lucas.
Great job, guys!
Suiting song for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obwv8E16ktg&feature=related
Damn Mato, talk about beastly skills. Didn’t expect you to get done with this so soon. Well done. Can’t wait to play the final product.
JOY TO THE WORLD BLOCK 0 IS DEAD NA NA NA NA NAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!! keep it up mato
Wow, this is turning out great. I WANT THIS TRANSLATION D:<. I can be patient dont get me wrong. but i really want this translation. π
Good job, Mato! With every update you make on this, it gets harder and harder for me to wait for you to finish it… XD I’m being as patient as I can, though… but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try and convince my friends to get the patch when it’s done, oh no, I’m gonna make some more Mother fans when I get the chance… π
Am I rambling to myself again? π
Excellent work, mang. Good to see the mighty Block 0 bug crushed =3
you guys are amazing and MUST know it! I can’t wait to play a video game worth playing again!
Wow, I am really glad. That was one of the nastiest things on the list! Great work!
When I go to the secret link, it says I need an invite to watch the video? Anyone else have this problem?
π
Woah, are you serious? That’s awesome, I honestly thought this translation patch wouldn’t be finished until late 2009 :P.
Well, grats on beating, or almost beating the final boss of this patch. π
WOOOOOOOOOO
I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the work that you’ve done on this project. Keep up the great work!
Wow. That’s beyond amazing, beyond awesome, beyond…good and evil… :p
Seriously, the amount of work you guys have put into this must be legendary. I can’t think of a praise for you guys. Keep up the good work!
And with that…The beast is slain. Bravo, Mato, bravo!
So, has anyone made artwork of Mato dancing on Block 0’s corpse yet? Because if not, we need it. NOW.
That went way faster than I anticipated. Great work, Mato. Keep it up. You’re so close.
Oh, man, that was fast. You guys are freakin’ incredible.
I’ve been following this project since the beginning (1- 2 years ago??). I can wait a few more months.
You do great work!
On the sprite morphing… why does it look like something changes a register with a pointer in it on you? Because it looks like it’s just pulling up the wrong sprites or jumbling them around for some reason…
Must be due to a screen update happening while something else is going on? Hmmm…
Eeeeeeeeeh! (That was supposed to be the cheer that you hear when you finish a 16-hit combo.)
Block 0 became tame!
You win!
Mr. Mato leveled up!
HP went up by 1!
PP went up by 10!
Attack went up by 3!
Defense went up by 6!
IQ went up by 99!
Speed went up by 7!
Thanks for all your hard work, you have done such a great job.
omg! you must be tired…
would u like to see me naked?
you need to rest and have a little fun , dont u think?
…………………………..why would you………n/m
*sigh*
Hey Mato,
Is it easier to hack a ds game than it is to hack a gba game?
because someone translating a soccer rpg and i want to know if it would take as long.
anyway great job π
Bare my children!
I love you. Now gimmee!
Adam: Why do you want to undress your children?
You are cooler than Chuck Norris, and I say that without fear of him roundhouse kicking me in my sleep.
Mato is so going into the Guiness Book of Records!
This is freaking awesome.
This is freaking awesome. You guys rock.
I think I’m gonna cry. The Mother game that was never planned to be released in english, is almost here!! And it’s all thanks to the fans, not Nintendo!!
Excellent update, as always. I want to thank you again for the hard work and quality time you’ve spent, especially in the last year, on this project. You are giving everyone around the Internet an amazing gift. We thank you for sharing your efforts with all of us.
@Dartz: The king? He should be called the god of hacks.
Plus when this is all over, let us rejoice by playing MOTHER 3 in full english!
RUOK: I’ve never hacked a DS game, but from what I’ve heard and seen, I would assume that it’d be somewhat easier. The DS uses an actual filesystem, the developers probably don’t have to do crazy crap to compress data as much, there’s more memory to work with, etc.
But in the end, it all comes down to the people who programmed it. Some games might be really really easy to hack/translate, some others might be insanely hard.
I thought that Block 0 was going to take weeks on end like the hacking for the sprite-welding. I hope the text morphing bug is as easily fixed.
How complicated do you think the “testing” phase is going to be?
Mato, have you thought about what you’ll do with your extra free time when your done?
HE’S GOING TO DISNEYLAND.
ok.. please dont type spoilers in here.
some b!tch wrote “snake kills lucas” or something like that..
i hope that doesnt ruin anything for me.
PHAG